Writing Life
I love my writing life and the people in it, and I can’t believe God has called me to it. Last year, I even wrote my own book (I’ll give it to you for free if you ask in the comments. It’s also here.). But mostly I am blessed to make a living helping other people write their books. I have a process by which I manage to write about 15 books a year and more than 200 articles and blog posts.
Here is what a day in my life as a professional cowriter looks like:
Wake up without alarm (usually around 5 these days).
Drink 2-3 cups of coffee while I listen to the Bible.
Make a schedule for the day in my journal (Leuchtturm1917, the nicest I can find) with the only kind of pen I like (Uni Ball Vision Elite).
One project is top priority and gets the most time.
Another 3-5 projects (books and articles) get smaller amounts of time (the rest are sitting in editing or with the ball in the client’s court).
7 a.m. - I get an alarm to check and see if my website: www.ChristianGhostwriting.com is still up and running. Sometimes the server has gone down and I didn’t know. No website, no clients.
7:45 Take kids to school and/or work.
8:15 Talk to my wife for a little bit.
Finish up any work I didn’t finish already.
Late morning: meeting with: a client, or a potential client (sales meeting).
Lunch with a friend from church or another pastor in town (I’m a pastor).
Maybe one more potential client meeting in the afternoon, and possibly one of four other events:
Go teach voice to musical theater students at Illinois Wesleyan University (this is a hobby that pays poorly, but all my education is in music/singing).
Teach my online writing class with one of the superstar students on Zoom (I have two cohorts a week).
Go to the Y and play pickleball and lift weights with my youngest son.
Touch base with one of my editing team members on a project (blessed by an amazing cast of editors, including two of my adult kids and my father).
Try to write some more (even though I can barely complete a sentence after noon, but you never know, I may get a second wind).
Quit around 4:00 for evening—Family or church stuff with an occasional potential client call sometime in the night.
What’s your routine? Where does writing fit in it? Bless us by showing in the comments.
Tools of the Craft
I was walking through a building on Illinois Wesleyan’s campus, and I passed through a hallway where someone from maintenance was working on something. There was an impressive tool box with the neatly ordered tools of his craft. I made a note in one of my own tools of the craft: Apple Reminder list. “Remind me to write about the tools of the writing craft.”
Now I’m doing that. Here are some of mine:
As discussed above, I like a nice journal and pen.
I write remotely on an iPad. Mine needs an update, because large Google docs are starting to shut down, especially when there are notes and suggested edits.
I have a desk in the basement with a moveable standing desk option like this one. I got mine at Office Depot.
On that desk is a Mac with a huge monitor.
I bought the best chair I could afford—I think it’s a gamer chair—also from Office Depot.
Noise canceling headphones – (theta waves, music, whale sounds, white noise)
Software and websites
OtterAI for recording and transcribing interviews
Zoom, of course!
WhatsApp for clients overseas (especially after that $200 phone bill to Canada!)
Chat.openAI.com, mostly as a search tool or editor
Square for invoicing and payment processing
Fiverr.com (where I get some business and hire freelancers)
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn. I am horrible with all of them, but I’m trying.
Yellow pads, stacks and stacks of them
What about you? What are your essential tools for writing? Comment and share.
Creating
It’s all creating. I don’t care who you are or what you do. You are creating. If you will let yourself be creative, everything will be better and you will find what you are amazing at (Mom, if you’re reading, I know I ended this sentence with the worst preposition, but I really had to!)
What else is there?
People pay you to write so go for it! MOM 😊